NHL under fire as Quebec police probe notorious hit

The NHL found itself under scrutiny Thursday from police, league sponsors and even Prime Minister Stephen Harper over its handling of this week’s devastating hit that put Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty in hospital and gave the league another black eye.

After Montreal police announced that they are investigating whether Boston Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara could be criminally charged for his actions, league commissioner Gary Bettman found himself dropping the gloves to duke it out with Air Canada, one of the league’s corporate sponsors.

It’s all fallout from Tuesday’s game in Montreal, where Chara checked Pacioretty into the stanchion which divides the players’ benches. The brutal high-speed collision caused Pacioretty’s body to twist in mid-air before collapsing to the ice.

Pacioretty was knocked unconscious and suffered a fractured cerebral vertebrae and a concussion. He was released from hospital Thursday.

The check has drawn outrage from all quarters, and even the prime minister waded into the debate Thursday.

“I hope the league is concerned about the number of very serious incidents we have seen in recent times and that’s something they are going to have to address,” Harper told reporters in Toronto.

The other stern rebuke came from Air Canada. The airline sent a strongly worded letter to Bettman and to the six Canadian teams Wednesday, stating it will withdraw its sponsorship if Chara is not suspended.

On Thursday, Bettman brushed offer the threat and made a veiled one of his own.

Speaking after a U.S. congressional discussion on youth hockey, Bettman said that while the injury was “horrific,” the league made the right decision in choosing not to suspend Chara.

“Air Canada is a great brand, as is the National Hockey League, and if they decide they need to do other things with their sponsorship dollars, that is their prerogative, just like it is the prerogative of our clubs that fly on Air Canada to make other arrangements if they don’t think Air Canada is giving them an appropriate level of service.”

The police investigation was prompted by a request from Quebec’s director of criminal and penal prosecutions.

“Many people were questioning the possibility that this gesture might be criminal,” said Quebec prosecutions spokeswoman Martine Berube.

“(Police) are responding to the NHL’s failure to impose any discipline on Chara,” said Len Glickman, a Habs fan and sports lawyer at Cassels Brock and Blackwell in Toronto.

There’s no guarantee a charge will be laid, he said, unless police can prove intent to injure and that it went above and beyond regularly expected contact. Some legal experts question whether a court is the place to deal with the incident.

Defence lawyer Frank Pappas said it would be “unprofessional conduct” by any prosecutor to charge Chara criminally based on the video of the hit because there’s no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to commit an assault. Chances of a conviction, he said, would be remote.

“I agree that it’s high time that something be done about violence in hockey, but this case, as unfortunate as it is, is not the case to bring to criminal court,” he said.

“If we’re going to bring criminal charges against a player, let’s make sure that it’s a clear case where there’s no ambiguity, no misinterpretation about the player’s intention and here, we have everything but that.”

Still, there is legal precedent for such charges.

Former Boston Bruins player Marty McSorley eventually was convicted of assault with a weapon after using his stick to club the Vancouver Canucks’ Donald Brashear in the side of his head in 2000. In 2004, Vancouver Canuck Todd Bertuzzi pleaded guilty to assault after his high-profile, on-ice sucker-punch of Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche. That flare-up took place exactly seven years to the day before Chara’s hit on Pacioretty.

Moore has launched a $20-million lawsuit against Bertuzzi and Orca Bay Ltd., the company that at the time, owned the Canucks.

Bertuzzi, in turn, is countersuing his former coach, Marc Crawford, alleging that he was encouraged to hit. A date for the litigation is expected to be set by a Toronto court next month.

Fans, especially those in Montreal, have not been taking the latest incident lightly. Police in Montreal said they received several 911 calls from the public demanding an investigation.

The NHL response to this latest incident has shown a lack of empathy to the feelings of fans and sponsors when it comes to violence on the rink, said Mike Mulvey, a marketing professor at the University of Ottawa. And that could put sponsorships at risk.

“If a sport isn’t what you signed up for it to be, if it’s starting to change its character, if it’s starting to change its direction that doesn’t align with your corporate goals, certainly it makes sense for them to re-evaluate,” Mulvey said.

Still, he said that Air Canada and the NHL should have kept their debate out of the public eye because now they both risk coming out the worse for wear.

One sponsor pulling out is unlikely to make a massive difference, but if enough of them got together it could be a problem for the league, Mulvey said.

Scotiabank, Tim Hortons and Molson Coors all issued statements affirming their sponsorship, but urging continued vigilance on safety.

Another league sponsor, Labatt, said it won’t consider changing its sponsorship structure.

“As a sponsor of various professional sports, we do not interfere with the management, rules, sanctioning process or administration of disciplinary actions of each sport’s governing body,” Labatt spokeswoman Catherine Pringle said in an email Thursday.

On Parliament Hill, Gary Lunn, the minister responsible for sports, said the government has no plans to amend the Criminal Code to include hits on the ice.

“I think that the NHL needs to look at that and needs to deal very severe consequences as a deterrent so that they won’t take those shots,” he said.

The minister declined to comment on the Montreal police investigation or on the NHL’s ruling that the hit was not intentional.

Liberal MP and former sports minister Denis Coderre introduced a bill in the House of Commons on Thursday for Parliament to “condemn” the NHL for not taking action to crack down on “unnecessary, dangerous physical play.”

“If the National Hockey League doesn’t take care of its players . . . it also becomes a matter of public health,” said Coderre, an avid Canadiens fan, in French. “Does someone have to die on the ice before saying, ‘Oh, you should have done something’?”

Montreal Canadiens chairman Geoff Molson called the league’s decision not to suspend Chara “a hard blow for both the players and fans of the Montreal Canadiens.”

He called on all 29 other NHL owners to tackle the growing safety concerns in the sport.

“At risk are some of the greatest professional athletes in the world, our fan base and the health of our sport at all levels,” he wrote. “We understand and appreciate hockey being a physical sport, but we do not accept any violent behaviour that will put the players’ health and safety at risk.”

Matthew Chmura, a spokesman for the Boston Bruins, said his team would co-operate with the Montreal police.

Boston’s coach Claude Julien, meanwhile, was standing by his player.

“We know he didn’t do it on purpose. It wasn’t intentional,” Julien told The Associated Press. “But at the same time, I understand their frustration at the other end because we’ve been on the other side of the coin, and it’s normal to be frustrated and I understand them as well. And that’s basically my thoughts on that.”

With files from Brad Bouzane and Linda Nguyen and the Montreal Gazette.

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